PlayLab proposes to create a theatrical one set stage play, centered around the studio’s proverbial table. Throughout the course of the play, we follow a group of characters that stumble on a room of unrealized ideas, and spend the duration of the play agreeing, disagreeing, and ultimately deciding on what idea deserves a second chance. Each performance of the play results in another unrealized idea. Ultimately, the play highlights the studio’s process, while using it as a productive opportunity to realize a new idea.

For the past 2,500 years, people have been performing stories of all kinds in front of others. As technology surpasses itself at a growing rate, its clear that nothing rivals the in-person experience of narratives, acted, styled, designed, and shared with others. As a studio, we’re increasingly interested what we haven’t tried, and theater simply contains all artful elements. With the immense amount of disciplines ingrained into this art form, it feels simultaneously thrilling and impossible, a perfect combination for this studio.

There’s two specific plays we reference: Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose in 1955, and the Lehman Trilogy by Stefano Massini in 2013. Both iconic plays are situated around one primary set piece—a single table. At these tables, you see on full display the nuance of characters, their interactions, and the decisions they make—ultimately all which feel like an exchange with the audience. In many ways, the table, and what occurs around it, is an analogy for PlayLab’s process of iterating countless ideas for hours, with heavy and considered conversation, resulting in a project, before moving onto the next.

An overview of potential scenes, using the studio’s “Teamwork” chair as a symbol